Solid construction, if using a lot of plastic.

Much less distortion than other wide angle lenses, good contrast and rendition.

Full manual controls, aperture and zoom ring.

It's a super wide angle on a full frame camera. Remember wide for film was 24mm, and this is goes down to 19mm. To get wider on full frame gets much more expensive very quickly.

Autofocus is acceptably fast.

Screw type autofocus so cameras without an internal motor (d40) are out of luck.

Plastic filter mount can break, and did on my first example.

That's about it.

There's a little secret to this lens I'll let you in on if you own a Nikon. If you're using this on a DX format camera (small sensor) it's no different than the standard DX lenses. Pictures on my D50 looked identical to those with the kit 18-55mm lens, just with a shorter zoom range.

But......lean closer and I'll whisper.....on a full frame camera (FX) like the D700, this is a super wide angle. That's right, it does the same job a DX format lens like the 12-24mm does for only about a hundred dollars and with less distortion. The coverage in my D90 at 12mm and this lens on my D700 at 19mm are practically identical.

And it's cheap!

Customer Service

I had to have the filter ring replaced on my first example as it split. Service was fast (under a week) and the price was reasonable.

Similar Products Used:

Upwards of 40 Nikon, Tamron, Tokina, and Russian lenses.

- Sharp
- Contrasty
- Nice Build (even though it's plastic)
- best value

- lens hood is kind of hard to put on
everything else I accept for the price I paid

I got this on ebay because I just couldn't say 'NO' for 55€. And what a surpise when the lens arrived. It performs great on my D700. Even wide open it's not useless. At f5.6 the borders are also pretty fine. What a great value lens.

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 12-24
Tokina 12-24

- Built. I am amazed to get such a relatively well built lens for such a price. - Hood is included - No lens extension when zooming. - Relatively sharp. - It doesn't look bad to go with my EOS-20D.

- AF is hunting in low light. - A bit noisy.

I would like to get a "value for money" wide angle + well built lens to replace my EF-S 18-55. Yes, the range is not as good as EF-S 18-55 and F stop doesn't have much different but I decided to go ahead since I bought my second hand version by around $85.

Customer Service

No need

Similar Products Used:

EF-S 18-50, EF 50 1.8, EF 28-105 3.5-4.5

Price Good Sharpness for the price OK outdoor AF for the price Fantastic manual focus ring Max aperture is pretty standard for the price

Low light AF is wretched

Before purchasiing this lens, one must keep one thing in mind - you get what you pay for especially when buying photographic equipment. That said, this is a good lens, for the price. The sharpness is ok stopped down and just fine for newspaper publication wide open. If you're obsessed with sharpness, you will probably be dissatisfied with the Tokina 19-35mm and you should probably not even be considering lenses in its price range. My number one complaint with this lens is the ABOMINABLE LOW LIGHT AF. The AF is slow even in bright, outdoor light, but at least it's accurate in bright light. Indoors in low light, you can pretty much forget about AF for critical shots. I discovered this on a recent assignment in which I had to shoot an interview in a dimly lit office. After a few shots, I realized that the AF was almost 100% inaccurate, so I had to switch to manual focus. Thankfully, the Tokina 135 has FANTASTIC MANUAL FOCUSING. Taken the pros and cons together, the Tokina is a pretty well-rounded lens for the price. I recommend it.

Customer Service

None needed

Color saturation is quite amazing. Light. Autofocusses quickly (on a Minolta Maxxum 5). Cheap. Versatile: 19-35mm is a nice range to work with.

Could be faster: f3.5 is not that great but you get what you pay for ;) Built cheaply: sometimes feels like it is about to fall apart... But it has not happened yet. Flare baby, flare! The hood that came with it is almost useless. Good thing it is nice since you'll use your left hand quite often when shooting in the sun!

I bought this lens as I needed a wide angle zoom to take landscape pictures. It hasn't failed me yet, after about 2 years of use, and still takes really nice pictures, especially when stopped down to f5.6 and higher.

Customer Service

Not needed yet... But I won't use if it breaks down since I got it for so little money!

Similar Products Used:

None

Light weight, optics

Is made of plastic (I think the previous version was metal?).....although I'm not sure this makes a whole lot of difference...EVERYTHING IS MADE OF PLASTIC THESE DAYS. And why don't they include the d**n lense hood in the purchase of the lense???

I bought this lense for a trip to Rome back in August. I used it almost exclusively on my N80 while there (along with a friend's 50mm lense). It is an excellent lense...my slides and prints are excellent as far as quality goes. The nice thing about this lense is that you can take lots of shots without a tripod and still get good sharpness...the old rule about handholding and the reciprocal of the focal length. Seems to be a solid lense...the zoom rings and focus rings have a pleasing feel (I actually used manual focusing most of the time).....not too stiff, not too loose.

Customer Service

They got my rebate check back pretty quickly.....and even filled out my warranty card for me!

Similar Products Used:

none

Price Contrast construction

Focus shift at the corners Possible chromatic shift at the corners

I bought this lens as part of my first foray into digital photography as I didn't want get heavily financially involved with a system that I hadn't used before. (I had only shot med and large format and had no 35mm equipment) I am pleased to say that this was a wonderful little lens for the beginner to prosumer. The contrast is crisp especially under low light conditions, its light and robust, erognomic, and resonably quick to focus (it's no AF-S though). The only problems I found were that focus tended to fall of towards the corners with a slight (you really had to look hard)chromatic aberation with slight violet fringing.I have since been told that the violet fringing is a function of the camera rather than the lens so my assesment may be unfair. Bottom line... an excellent bang for the buck. What did I replace it with? A Nikkor 18-35 which is now being replaced with a Nikkor 17-35. But it's a great place to start.

Similar Products Used:

Nikkor AF ED 18-35 D Nikkor AF-S ED 17-35 D Nikkor AF-S ED 12-24 G DX

• Great price • Fast autofocusing • Solid construction (but I miss metal lenses) • Smooth zooming • No ghosting, nice clean flares

• The snap-on hood • 77mm filter size - the filters are expensive and take up a lot of room in the camera bag • Fuzzy corners below f/5.6

After balking at the ridiculous asking price of the Nikon 17-35mm 2.8 lens, I went to Ritz Camera and found this lens, repackaged as a Quantaray, for $200. I had been using my dad's old Nikon F2, which had a broken meter, and the widest lens we had for it was a 28mm. In desperate need of a wide angle lens to fit my then-new Nikon system, I willingly forked over my christmas money. This lens has never let me down. At 19mm I had an angle of view that I thought impossible without a fish-eye lens. I have since found out otherwise, of course, as Nikon has had wide-angle lenses all the way down to 13mm since the early '80s. The images from this lens are incredibly sharp and the colors are exactly as I see them (although I tend to keep a polarizer on this lens). The zoom handle is smooth and autofocusing is really fast. However, at apertures higher than f/5.6, the corners of the image get a little fuzzy. But for the money, this lens is great.

Customer Service

Not needed

Similar Products Used:

Nikon 28mm manual focus

Price, build quality including a metal lens mount, good AF performance, included hood, and a 5-year warranty

For the price, no unpleasant surprises

A $200 lens isn't supposed to be good, especially in this zoom range. They have corner softness, geometric distortions (around 2-3%), and corner light fall-off. Build quality is plasticky, especially the lens mounts, and AF motors tend to be slow and noisy. But, after considerable research into zoom superwide/wide lenses costing twice as much, I found the pricier equipment, including the Nikon stuff, shares many of these shortcomings. So, why pay twice as much? The Tokina is every bit as well made as my Nikon D 28-105 with a metal lens mount and fairly fast and quiet AF. Optical performance is acceptable when stopped-down to f8 and smaller. Distortions with this or any other superwide zoom lens? It's a part of their charms, so don't sweat it. Here's a little something the other reviews have missed about the Tokina: you can buy it at Ritz/Wolf/etc. as a Quantaray house brand for $200 INCLUDING THE BAYONET LENS HOOD AND A 5-YEAR WARRANTY. If you buy it as a Tokina, the hood is almost $25 extra and the warranty is only 1-year. By the time you factor in the current Tokina $20 rebate and the price of the optional hood, if you buy this lens as a Tokina you end up paying $5 more for less. One of the really cute things is that although the lens label reads Quantaray, the included lens hood reads Tokina. They aren't hiding the origins very well.

Customer Service

Haven't had to use it.

Similar Products Used:

Nikkor D 28-105 3.5-4.5 & Olympus Zuiko: 28 f2.8, 100 f2.8, 200 f4, 35-105 3.5-4.5, & 50 f1.8

very well built lightweight internal zoom internal focus sharp warm colors

none

Typical great build quality from a Tokina lens (metal Pentax mount) with a twist that it is very lightweight. I love the internal zoom and internal focus design. It does not extend out extra inches nor turn the filter. I take advantage of the wide angles to take mostly indoor shots were slower shutter speeds can be used. The results are very sharp pictures with great warm colors. Please note I use 35mm film and process them to 4 X 6 print. I attended a Next Fest exhibit recently and took pictures of cars, a flying car, turbine engine and a robot. The pictures were astonishing with 400 speed film! For a few outdoor pictures the result was amazing sharpness and the same great warm colors. I truely love this lens!

Customer Service

none

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 24-70 f3.5 - f4.5 Tokina 24-200 AT-X f3.5 - f5.6